NEAL FISHMAN

The inside story of the decade-long battle for the future of a Lost Coast wilderness, told candidly and personally.

have lost my woodworkers pin. Don Nelson gave it to me, and also one to Maxene, when he was head of the International Woodworkers of America local union in Fort Bragg. I was very proud getting that pin; it was one of my prized possessions. It is clear now that I never deserved it. There is poetic justice in its loss.

hen people streamed into California with the Gold Rush, some of them headed north to cut the primeval forest and start ranches and towns. The original redwood forests lasted for nearly a century before only remnant stands remained. The people who were there before, the Wailaki, Pomo, Mattole, Cahto, and others, did not survive for more than a generation, except in dispersed bands. Cut down one by one and in unknown massacres, the original people of northern California, out of sight of the rest of the world, were enslaved and murdered. Their children were stolen and their world was destroyed.
Even today, the story of these people's destruction is largely unknown. Northern Mendocino County was no more remote from white civilization than were the Great Plains or the Apache country, but the holocaust that happened in the redwood country never caught the popular imagination. Perhaps it was just too hard to see, what with giant trees, great rivers, leaping salmon, and all that gold downstate to block the view. When the Coastal Conservancy became involved in Sinkyone, we did not start out with any grand ideas about righting historical wrongs. The creation of an intertribal park, representing the homecoming of Indian people to the coastal redwood forest, was not on our minds. But as it turned out, we may have helped the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council to achieve some of this. We may also have helped to create some jobs for the future. Perhaps a few will even be woodworker jobs. Nonetheless, I am afraid I still will have lost my woodworkers pin, even if I eventually find it hidden in my sock drawer.

The "Sinkyone Promise" (Coast & Ocean, Summer 1987) told of the deal that led to the acquisition of over 7,000 acres in the extreme northwest corner of Mendocino County. Much of what was said in that article no longer applies. To many, including Don Nelson, the Sinkyone promise has been broken.
Ancient redwoods are greatly valued by multitudes for their beauty and spiritual quality; they also produce some of the world's best and most valuable lumber. In the early 1980s, the Sinkyone country--a rugged, extraordinarily beautiful stretch of the Lost Coast--was a battlefield in the "Redwood Wars." On one side were those who wanted to keep on logging the Sinkyone. They said that their jobs depended on it, that the country needed the wood, and that the county--then as now hard-pressed financially--needed the tax revenues.
On the other side were those who viewed continued logging as a wanton waste of our natural heritage. They wanted to add 7,000 acres owned by the Georgia Pacific Corporation to Sinkyone Wilderness State Park, in the process saving one of the area's last stands of old-growth redwoods. They called this stand the Sally Bell Grove, after an Indian woman who had survived a massacre and lived well into this century. They believed that the forest and streams could be restored and then rededicated to the Indian people. They had been fighting for this, both in and out of court.
This was serious stuff. People chained themselves to trees; many were arrested; and a lawsuit stopped Georgia Pacific's logging operations in the Sinkyone. There was much bitterness, even hatred, among the various groups.

Into this mess stepped Conservancy staffer Maxene Spellman and Peter Grenell, then the Conservancy's executive officer. At a Mendocino County Board of Supervisors meeting in March 1986, they got the Conservancy appointed mediator for the Sinkyone fight. We were charged with setting up a multiparty negotiating group to figure out what to do. Peter asked me to take the lead and work with Maxene.
The Trust for Public Land (TPL), a national conservation group, soon got involved and quietly cut a deal with Georgia Pacific officials to option the property at a bargain price. The Conservancy, along with the Department of Parks and Recreation and Save the Redwoods League, put up the money to close the deal. The negotiating group pretty much agreed to go along with the settlement that was reached. About half the 7,100-acre property, along the coast, would be added to the state park. The other half, comprising upland slopes and only scattered big trees, would be put to productive use. The Conservancy, working with the negotiating group, would devise a plan for how this land would be managed and who would own it. It was after this agreement was reached that Don gave me the pin.
So the rest of this story has to do with the 3,900-acre upland. Although it may not be the best part of the 7,100 acres, not the land with the last big redwood stands or the Coastal Trail, its fate has proven to be the most compelling part of the Sinkyone saga that has played out over the past decade.
This property is long and narrow, roughly one by seven miles running north to south. It is very steep in places and cut by many canyons and gullies. Because much of it was clear-cut in recent years, there is more heavy brush and hardwood forest than there is redwood or Douglas fir, and the land is crisscrossed with old logging roads and skid trails. But much of it is beginning to regenerate, partly through natural processes and also due to Georgia Pacifics replanting. Conifers are shooting up from the brush. This property includes the headwaters, tributaries, and part of the main stems of several creeks that run down to the state park. It includes riparian forest and wetlands. It is also habitat for many animal species, from Roosevelt elk to banana slugs, ospreys to black bear.
The land is also supremely beautiful. The highest ridges rise more than 1,800 feet above the Pacific Ocean. One can look 50 miles north to Punta Gorda and the Kings Range, and to the south, even see the wisp of smoke coming from the Georgia Pacific mill in Fort Bragg. The ridges and valleys of the state park are in the immediate foreground.
Indian cultural remains are mostly ground to dust and part of the soil, water, and forest, yet one still feels the Indian presence. People lived in Sinkyone when the pyramids of Egypt were just a dream.

When the Sinkyone transaction closed in 1986, we resigned ourselves to the deal as we saw it: The upland acres were to remain as industrial forest land. The primary use was definitely not for hikers, seekers of truth and wisdom, or anyone on the environmental side of the timber debate. That side had gotten the Sally Bell Grove, the Coastal Trail, and almost all the old growth. This land was to be for the other side.
It had been nip and tuck to reach even this compromise. The County Board of Supervisors, which had a firm policy that no more timber land should be taken out of production, had nearly disapproved the entire deal. Then state Senator Barry Keene and Assemblyman Dan Hauser supported the agreement, but only because there was to be a balanced approach. They might well have nixed funding had they not trusted that both the timber workers and the conservationists would get something.
Don Nelson, then the head of local woodworkers union, saw the deal the same way. During the negotiations that led to the property acquisition he had been the chief proponent of logging. He himself had cut many trees in Sinkyone. But in discussions he had been very reasonable, and he had risked much to agree to and, in fact, advocate the final agreement.
Some others in the negotiating group saw the deal differently, however. While they signed onto a letter to the Board of Supervisors supporting the deal and calling for multiple use of the property, they were not always clear as to what this meant to them. Ruth Ann Cecil and Cecilia Lanman, who represented the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), agreed that multiple use would involve logging, but they were vague as to the extent and timing. They alluded to rotation periods much longer than industry standards. Julie Verran of the Sierra Club, a long-time activist for Sinkyone, says that logging was never part of the deal.
Richard Gienger represented the Sinkyone Council, an ad hoc group of forest activists, many of whom lived in Whale Gulch, a settlement just north of Sinkyone. Richard was an early and tenacious supporter of Sinkyone and deserves as much credit as anyone for its eventual fate. He hated the deal and never agreed to it.
Priscilla Hunter, a central character in this story and the Indian representative on the negotiating team, also signed the letter to the Board of Supervisors but believed that it only meant we would do more talking. She did not believe that the deal was clear at all.
To effect the agreement we thought we had, we began to map out a plan for the upland, with the intention that TPL would sell it on the open market in a year or so, and the Conservancy would get its money back. (The coastal portion was now owned by the Department of Parks and Recreation.) As I envisioned things, the land would go to investors--probably to some doctors from Cleveland who would make a bundle on tax breaks. They would hire a manager who would follow our plans, which would allow for intensive but careful logging. The Conservancy or another organization of our choice would retain a conservation and public-access easement. This permanent interest in the land would prevent the Doctors from Cleveland from cutting too much or from disturbing archeological sites, and would ensure that the public had access, including hunting access, a right which Georgia Pacific workers had always enjoyed.
When our plans were done in draft, I set out to sell them to members of the negotiating team. I thought that our consultants had done a good job and had developed a set of rules which would provide pretty good protection to the forest.

At about the time the Sinkyone property was purchased, ten federally recognized tribes formed the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council. Its goal was to acquire Sinkyone land for an intertribal park. Priscilla Hunter was and is its chairwoman, representing the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians.
I first met Priscilla in a small coffee shop in Ukiah. This was before the InterTribal Council was formed but after she had been appointed to the negotiating committee. She was also a member of the State Native American Heritage Commission. Maxene and I bought her lunch. She seemed pleased. I figured the Indians issues would be peripheral. We would protect the archeological sites and they would think it was fine. Priscilla talked slowly and did not seem particularly knowledgeable about legal bureaucratic stuff. For a long time I did not see her depth and great intelligence. I didnt understand that she is a formidable guardian of her people and the land, and that she cannot be co-opted. I did not anticipate her opposition to logging.
At our first meeting she said nothing about an intertribal park. This idea came up at the next-to-last negotiating committee meeting before the deal was struck and the property was acquired. Ricardo Tapia, an Indian activist who had been party to the lawsuit that had tied up logging at Sinkyone, proposed such a park, but did not give much detail. I did not take the idea very seriously at the time.
Well after the deal closed, and well after my first meeting with Ricardo, it happened that the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council was holding a gathering at Sinkyone. Priscilla invited me. I accepted, thinking this would be a good time to bring out the plans and maps and begin my salesmanship. Notwithstanding some talk about the intertribal park, I was still somewhat clueless about any real Indian opposition to the deal as we saw it.
To me, this gathering became a turning point. Together with many subsequent political tides, it turned the deal on its head.
Perhaps 50 people were present when I arrived Friday night. Tents had been set up in the state park campground near Usal Creek, food was being prepared, and a campfire was going. There were several Indian dance groups. I was pretty comfortable. That was to change the next day.
Around dusk Saturday I sat down in the grass, surrounded by interested and intent listeners, virtually everyone at the gathering. I spread the draft plans and maps--beautiful hand-drawn maps--on the ground and began to explain the deal, feeling confident and prepared. I went through the realities of state and local politics and the difficulty of reaching the compromise. I was even ready to offer a place for an intertribal park--a few acres down near the state park, maybe also some inholdings in the main upland, some of the "no cut" stream areas, and the archeological sites. Then Coyote and Ricardo Tapia stepped into the picture.
I don't remember Ricardo's words, something about the trees being their relatives. He didn't think much of my plans and did not think that I understood much about what Indian people wanted. He did not literally tear up my maps, but he lifted them and moved them away, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture.
Then Coyote sat down across from me, just a few feet away. I had met him a few times, but didn't know much about him. I had noticed earlier that he was held in great respect by this particular gathering. He has intense eyes that can be piercing. His speech is slow and almost slurred at times, his voice soft-edged even when he is angry and has raised it a notch.

From that point on it was clear to me that the Indian community would not accept the deal as I or Don Nelson saw it. If we pressed for an early sale of the upland there would be trouble. I investigated various alternatives, to no avail. In the meantime, timber talk on the North Coast was changing, and so were politics. In Humboldt County, many people continued to get arrested in demonstrations to stop old-growth logging. In Mendocino County, Liz Henry was elected to the Board of Supervisors and was willing to listen to new ideas. Don Nelson, no longer head of the woodworkers union, was busy exploring new directions. He was on the Forest Advisory Committee for the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors and had also, with others, formed the nonprofit Mendocino Forest Conservation Trust, which aimed, among other things, to acquire or at least manage the Sinkyone upland property. It became a rival to the InterTribal Council.
I had many other duties at the Conservancy, but kept a lookout for a way to carry out the deal we had made. I also helped the InterTribal Council get Conservancy funding for work on Indian history, but I still did not believe that the Council's goal of an intertribal park was achievable--not if it had a no-cut policy. The deal may have been vague, but to me selling the land to a strictly preservationist group was not possible. This changed in 1991, when I met Hawk Rosales, the Council's new coordinator.
Like many of the people involved in Sinkyone, Hawk is exceedingly complex. He is a horseman, saddle maker, tree planter, former Stanford student, and plays the violin. He harbors both compassion and anger. He is true to his cause and works very hard. Along with Priscilla and other members of the InterTribal Council, he pulled off a minor miracle in the next four years.
Hawk and I listened to each other. He and Priscilla Hunter continued to work with the Indian community, and also with influential environmentalists, to build momentum for the InterTribal Park. This work required delicacy, especially for Hawk, a young man. (He was around 30 when I met him.) Because the Indian community is very deferential to elders, Hawk could only suggest and explain. The elders and the InterTribal Council board had the final say.
Eventually, the Council clarified its position on forestry: There could be restoration forestry. The pre-European forest had had well-spaced big trees. Sinkyone was now choked with vegetation, largely the result of years of clear-cutting. It would need to be thinned.
Thinning would only be done for the sake of the forest's health, however. Hawk and Priscilla insisted that economic gain could not be a motive in the InterTribal Park. There might be some monetary gains from the thinning, or from other projects, but never would economic incentives guide any actions. The park could provide employment, empowerment, and education. It would provide young people with work to restore Indian land for the good of all people, thereby learning new skills. Indian culture and history would be taught, as well as natural history and land restoration. I began to see that Hawk and Priscilla and the others on the InterTribal Council meant what they said and had the strength and character to pull it off.
Had Don Nelson and the Forest Conservation Trust come up with the funds to buy the upland in the early 1990s, the outcome of this project would have been very different. They did not. In many ways they were outgunned by the InterTribal Council--a historic turnaround of sorts. Don had good intentions and the "deal" to back him up. The Council had Hawk, Priscilla, and others working full time to establish their vision and raise funds. They played their hand with increasing confidence and support. Hawk made contacts with private foundations and with both Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. The Bay Area Friends of Sinkyone, an ad hoc support group, was established. Indians and others starting working on the land and assisting the Conservancy in our work. Through the State Department of Forestry, the federal government awarded the InterTribal Council a grant to develop a forest stewardship plan. The Conservancy came through with matching funds as well as additional money for inventories of natural resources on the land.
We had come to see the intertribal park as the right answer for the entire property, not just a few acres, and were now actively working with the InterTribal Council to bring it about. Both the Conservancy and TPL threw out our original schedule for sale of the upland. We were willing to give the Council the time it needed. This would turn out to be over 10 years.
Letters began to flow in from all over California, then from out of state, then from Norway and Germany and Japan--nearly 1,000 letters in all, including some from entire classes in various schools, all supporting the intertribal park. The InterTribal Council began to receive grants from foundations and individuals around the country. Don's Forest Conservation Trust could not match this progress.
As the InterTribal Park vision caught on, I saw that the political structure at both the state and local level would probably go along. Sure, the InterTribal Council was not exactly the Doctors from Cleveland, but it had agreed that some level of thinning would have to be done. This would mean jobs and perhaps even trees going to local mills.
Then there was the larger picture. This would be the first intertribal park in the country. It would attract ecotourism. But even more important, this would be a new chapter in history, a step toward redressing some of the gruesome past. Indian people would be working to restore this land. Together with others, including educators and scientists, they would bring back some of what had been lost. Indian children would have pride and hope, instead of being tied to government assistance or the burgeoning casino industry.

Neal Fishman is the Coastal Conservancy's legislative coordinator and a long-time project analyst.